


Khol

by MemoryCrow



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Background - Freeform, Character Study, Eyeliner, Gen, Pretty things, Scribble, Snippet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemoryCrow/pseuds/MemoryCrow
Summary: A teeny-tiny bit of Killian Jones. I'm having a feeling that's a prelude to Hallowe'en.





	Khol

They all poked fun at it, even Emma. Regina, with her ‘guyliner’. Rumplestiltskin merely rolled his eyes or looked blandly unsurprised; trifling pirate concerns were beneath him.

They thought Killian vain, pretentious, absurd; maybe a wee touch confused about his sexuality.

It was possible that some, maybe all of those things were true, but none were the reason Killian dabbed his pinkie finger in khol and made dramatic shadows around his eyes. None of those things was the reason he stared out at the world from behind the mask of those shadows.

_Pretty boy_ , said exotic, dark-haired women in far away ports. Their dusky skin shimmered with honey-dust and they were bangled in gold and rubies. Their colorful garments were made heavy by silver and gold thread.

Before he could grow his habitual scruff, before his voice deepened into the husky creature he wielded over both women and men, he was a pretty boy.

It was a vulnerability, a weakness. Words were thrown about on ships; catamite, strumpet, courtesan.

_Delicate_ , said the dark women. They loved the blue of Killian’s eyes and his feathery-dark eyelashes, the inky-black of his hair, more crow-like than their own deep umber. They loved his pale skin which showed every blush. They loved the rosy color of his lips, their sensual shape. It was a thing upon which sailors couldn’t help but comment. It was a reason he’d learned to fight at so young an age.

_Delicate_ had the same pitfalls as _pretty_ ; weakness, even sickness. To the women who fussed over Killian and made a doll of him, it meant _open_. Open to all sorts of things. Open to spirits, who loved Killian as much as the women did. Who wanted to be inside him.

The women smudged khol around his eyes. It was to mask him, to make him ghoulish, part of the spirit world. It was camouflage, so the spirits might pass him by.

It only made him more beautiful.

Still, spirits wouldn’t possess one of their own; a pale boy whose stormy eyes flashed from the Underworld. So, too, did sailors think twice. The boy was a pretty thing, a pretty toy.

But, spooky. Touched by the grave. They left him alone.


End file.
